few of you may know this motor from other forums, owner is known as Chas on most forums

basically, Honda Prelude 2.2VTEC turbo that's been off the road for over a year now, we actually made a start on it the other night in a quest to find out what the problem is, basically is burning oil, lots of it, and running like a bag in general. we reckon it's lost compression in atleast one cylinder!

anyway here are the pics so far, I'll add as we go through the weeks...

Prelude in it's new home!


engine bay prior to us attacking it with spanners


aaah I see the problem!


traces of oil found in the intake


boost pipe now off ready for turbo/manifold removal


Turbonetics wastegate came off easily enough


working well into the night!


ahaa! turbo removableage! upon closer inspection, turbo seems fine thankfully (Chas holding his trophy)


big gap now!


that's it for now, hopefully over the weekend we'll be doing a compression test, will let you know the results

Great info,

I have spoken to Chas on FezOnline, top bloke imo!

Did he buy that hi-spec H22A lump he was looking at on Ebay? Potential 550bhp or something.

he's paid for some of it, but then the bank fcuked up one of the payments and now I ain't sure what's happening with it

think he's going to see what's wrong with this one and take it from there

carried on saturday with compression test! I can't be arsed type everything so I'll just copy john's post from TunerUK forum

Well, On saturday Stage 2 was upon us.
Compression testing!

First things first, I removed the HT Leads from the plugs, and unplugged both distributor connections to stop the coil energising when cranking.


Next I removed all of the spark plugs using the correct socket


Plug 1


Plug 2


Plug 3


Plug 4


Next I screwed the compression tester into the first cylinder

With the throttle opened, the engine was cranked for approximately 10 seconds on each cylinder.
All except cylinder 3 showed around 200psi
Cylinder 3 showed 240psi

Which we thought was kinda strange. but it did show that all cylinders had good compression, since the last engine I had showed 200psi in the good cylinders.

For this reason we decided it was best to have a good look at the turbo.



First off was the main bolts holding the Compressor housing.


To get the last 2 I had to undo the shaft housing bolts to rotate it


With those undone the housing came free


There were traces of oil in here too


Next the 6 bolts and 2 brackets holding the Turbine housing were undone


With those loose the whole mid section came free. You can see oil that's been leaking into the exhaust!!!!


Next to come off was this nut holding the compressor wheel on. The shaft has a reverse thread.

Off comes the Compressor wheel


Next I undid the 4 bolts holding on this plate


In here we can see the thrust bearing


3 torx bolts hold this in place


It then slid off complete with a small washer


In here you can see one of the rollerbearings


The story so far


After a few light taps the shaft came out of the housing, only to reveal lots of burned oil and carbon buildup inside!

All this crap was trapped in this area


And the coverplate that was over it


It looks to me like there should be an oil seal of some sort in this groove


The carbon filled coverplate again


Another shot of the shaft with empty groove


In here you can just see the ceramic rollerbearing

now this was a brand new turbo when fitted, it's done barely 5000 miles really

what we think has happened, an oil seal went on one of the balancing cars in the engine awhile and he lost all oil pressure, we reckon this could have been a catalyst for the seal going on the turbo but I don't really know enough about turbos to know wether this is correct or not

anyone else have any ideas?

Blimey the investigation continues.

Certainly looks bad in the exhaust housing but don't see how that could cause the engine to run particulary badly

What was the smoking like, was it white smoke while it was cold or blue under load?

it was smoking all the time, but under load it was alot worse

we're going to get hold of a standard manifold and downpipe and run the engine with those on see if it smokes or not

if anyone has any spare or know of any we could borrow over a weekend it would be usefull

I had a really shagged garret on my XR4x4 which was so bad oil actually ran out the housing. That smoked during warm up but cleared up once warm.

Hearing about it smoking underload and running badly really makes me wonder if the problem is the crankcase breathing. I believe the H22A can suffer from the PCV valve failing which causes them to splutter and run like the sparks cutting or something.

The valve is on the rear right corner of the rocker cover and goes to the throttle body. I think it's what Chas has replaced with garden hose running to a catch tank.

If that isn't breathing like it should then I believe the oil pressure which try to blow up through the piston rings into the combustion chamber.

Could be worth giving it the click test by taking it off and blowing through it both ways.

cheers chris, will pass it on and add to the list of things to check

I get oil in my compressor housing / inlet pipework and airflow meter on my Tickford Vitesse. I checked the impeller shaft for play but its real firm in both planes.

The first time I got a 'smoke on' I was a bit dischuffed as I assumed the turbo was toast. However I've just come to accept (following not being arsed to remove it), that it'll either smoke or I'll clean the pipes out every few weeks. It seems that the smoke is caused when the oil vapour condenses and pools just before the airflow meter and then gets sucked in as droplets.

Sorry its not a silver bullet for your troubleshooting - but I thought it would make you feel better regarding your active commitment to sorting it out. Regards to Chas - he's a really nice guy...